Just to add some more info, I did not (to the best of my knowledge) have a legacy HP FF acct (unless mommy & daddy signed me up > 15 years ago).
More fun stuff: the old US system could deal with first names that had a space in the first names: the boarding passes had the full first name (XXXX XXXX) in them.
I can't email the Chairman's address (can I?); this flight brings me to lowly Silver status.
BTW: Does it (Silver status) happen immediately or in January?